What is a muscle car?

What is a muscle car?

There are many different definitions of what qualifies as a muscle car. The broadest definition is any car with a large and powerful engine and a beefed up suspension. Upgraded interiors, fancy paint schemes and nicer wheels and tires are also usually part of the package. Using this definition, huge cars like the 1970 Impala and even compacts like the 1964 Chevy Nova made the list. There is even room for pony cars like the Camaro and Mustang. The mighty Corvette qualifies as well.

Purists narrow that definition considerable and only include midsized cars as muscle cars. These cars include the Chevrolet Chevelle, the Dodge Charger, Plymouth Road Runner and the classic Pontiac GTO. Other performance oriented car categories include: pony cars and American sports cars. Pony cars include the Ford Mustang, Chevrolet Camaro and Dodge Challenger. American sports cars include the Chevrolet Corvette and the Dodge Viper.

Below is a list of the American performance cars broken down by category and years manufactured. Note that we used the “Muscle Cars” label for both the full sized, compact and, of course, midsized cars. For this list we have expanded the strictest definition a little. We have also included a list of pony cars and sport cars. Taken together, this lists represents the best performance oriented cars ever produce by American manufactures.

Complete List Of Muscle Cars

Classic Full-Size Muscle Cars	Classic Pony Cars
1961–1970 Chevrolet Impala	1968–1970 AMC AMX
1959–1969 Ford Galaxie	1968–1974 AMC Javelin and AMX
	1967–2002 Chevrolet Camaro
Classic Mid-Size Muscle Cars	1970–1974 Dodge Challenger
1968–1974 Buick Gran Sport and GTX	1965–2004 Ford Mustang
1984-1987 Buick Grand National and GNX	1969–1970 Mercury Cougar
1965–1973 Chevrolet Chevelle	1964–1974 Plymouth Barracuda
1964-1973 Chevrolet El Camino	1967–2002 Pontiac Firebird & Trans Am
1983–1987 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS
1966–1974 Dodge Charger	Modern Pony Cars
1968–1971 Dodge Super Bee	2010-Currnet Chevrolet Camaro
1966–1969 Ford Fairlane	2008-Current Dodge Challenger
1968–1974 Ford Torino	2005-Currnet Ford Mustang
1966–1972 Mercury Cyclone
1968–1971 Oldsmobile 442	American Sports Cars
1967–1971 Plymouth GTX	1953-Current Chevrolet Corvette
1968–1974 Plymouth Road Runner	2004-2009 Cadillac XLR
1964–1974 Pontiac GTO	2005-2006 Ford GT
	1955-1957 Ford Thunderbird
Modern Mid-Sized Muscle Cars	2002-2005 Ford Thunderbird
2004-Current Cadillac CTS-V	1992-Current Dodge Viper
2006-Current Dodge Charger
2004-2006 Pontiac GTO
Classic Compact Muscle Cars
1962–1976 Chevrolet Nova
1968–1976 Dodge Dart
1970–1976 Plymouth Duster